New fandom, old problems

[indri]

So, these days I know what I'm doing with BtVS fic. I know how to find the good stuff. I'm on the right mailing lists, I hear from tireless readers like makd, and the people on my Flist rec (and write) plenty of stuff worth reading. There's so much good material out there that I haven't made the slightest attempt at keeping up, even if such a thing were possible. But when I'm in the mood, I can always find something.

But currently I'm hunting down Veronica Mars fics and it's reminding me of my first wobbly steps into BtVS fandom. I google for rec lists and then try and work out if the recommender and I have similar tastes. I'm a half a season behind US viewers, so I take care to avoid spoilers; but every time I catch the smallest hint I'm struck down by this awful pit-of-the-stomach fear that I won't enjoy the second season as much as the first. I am nauseous with fear for my favourite characters and character arcs in a way I haven't felt since the latter days of BtVS and Angel. I LOATHE this feeling. LOATHE IT! It's like having a crush. "You're not the show I thought you were and you toy with my affections!"

Anyway, this week I've waded through much middling Veronica/Logan and some excellent Veronica/Logan and a whole bunch of fic that I find extremely irritating because of the way they handle legal technicalities such as how long it would take someone to be tried for murder, whether the defendant would get bail etc etc. (I know that Abel Koontz was already on death row, so perhaps Neptune exists in Legal Hyperspace, but still.) Character studies and genfic seem thin on the ground. Hell, anything that isn't Veronica/Logan seems thin on the ground, but maybe that's due to a poor sampling of rec lists on my part. Most of the stories speculate on what happened immediately post-season, which is fair enough. And there's a lack of complexity, which I should really expect in a show that's barely started -- BtVS was already five years old by the time I started reading the fic.

But still, there are some joys of the kind peculiar to fanfic. I found an enjoyable character study -- of Leo of all people. wisteria_ writes fine Veronica/Logan the way she wrote fine Buffy/Spike. I can think to myself,"I want to read a story about Duncan in Cuba and lo! I can find one. I have taken to Logan/Meg as a sublimated way of satisfying my desire for post-NFA-Spike/anyone-who'd-be-nice-to-him.

And I can stumble over a bizarre crossover that somehow, against all odds, works: dark_roast's Fish Out of Water (Spoilers for all of Season 1). Logan spends a summer in Arkham. Yes, that's right, it's a Veronica Mars-Lovecraft Mythos crossover, one with some hilarious lines in it, and which sometimes reads like a children's adventure story; it appeases the fanfic gods by using the Deep Ones as strange handmaidens to Character Epiphany and the One True Pairing. Ah, fanfic.

So, can anyone rec me some recs?

Comments

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

Just seen the first episode of Veronica Mars, and I liked it. But it's not without some fear that I have started seeing this show, when have I read from several lj’s that Veronica/Logan == Buffy/Spike.

Anyway here is BtVS/Veronica Mars crossover that I liked, even before a saw a Veronica Mars episode California Screaming

[indri]

Veronica/Logan == Buffy/Spike.

It has much the same vibe. Also, I'm quite keen on the pairing so no doubt it's all horribly doomed.

Thanks for the California Screaming rec. I hope more chapters are added soon.